FML... B20B in Hatch... dropped valve story...

Well I have been having a stumbling problem i beleive to be ecu related with my old PR4... so i bought a new dizzy, conversion harneses and p75 ecu that had an unknown chip in it so i could go to OBD1... well i test the ecu in my buddies OBD1 CRX with same exact motor as i have and it ran like it was supposed to and seemed to be fine, so i call it good. well tonight i install it all into my car and get it running... well i revved it a couple of times to see if it was being responsive and the ecu was making it run better on my car. all seemed good but i had a bad tach connection and it was bouncing all over the place, well it smoothed out and i revved it... 6,500 6,700 6,800 7,000 7,200 7,500 7,800 8,000 8,500 9,000 9,500 bout that time i realized "oh crap let off" as i did i hear this all to familiar rattling noise and i shut it down... pull plug #2... it was fine #3 fine as well oh i forgot #1 pull it.... it doesnt anna come... unfortunatly i knew exactly what this meant... get the plug out the electrode was smashed in pretty bad and of course plug ruined. pull #4 it was fine.

So now i get to pull the head on the motor i havent had in the car for even a full month yet... joy... now i have to hope the head is fine and pray the piston isnt damaged anymore than some very minor dings, then spend money on something that i didnt have to originally cause i screwed up and found out the hard way cause i wasnt paying attention that the ECU chip has no rev limiter aparently.

so i guess if the head is salvagable and the combustion chanber wasnt damaged and can be cleaned up i wanna go ahead and do some work to it... i want brian crower stage 3 cams and was gonna run theyre springs as well. any thoughts on theyre stainless steel valves?

should i go bigger on em? if so how much? porting and polishing is out of my budget as it is expensive for good work. I do plan on running a 75hp wet shot of nitrous on it as well it that makes any differance.

There is no point in running over sized valves unless your having the head machined to match. meaning a port job and de-shrouding the combustion chamber. You also should have the valve seats cut for the larger valves and have the inlet and outlet throats re worked. Basically I would not recommend running over sized valves unless you have a fully built race head. +1 on the cams and valve springs.

well i talked to a buddy of mine who said one of the local shops he had his head done at does porting and ceramic coating for 80 bux a cylinder... supposedly the ceramic coating is supposed to be somthing like 1000x smoother than even the best polish job...

guess ill give it a shot, cant hurt anything i guess so ima go with larger valves and a port job to match, i already ordered the BC springs and titanium retainers, next week is register my truck (got a ticket) then the following week will be BC Stainless Steel Valves, and start saving for the nearly 1k its gonna cost me for the valve job, port work, and finish coating on the head (my gut hurts thinking about it) then it will be money for the BC Stage 3 race cams... ::sigh:: i hate being addicted to always having to make things better and faster... then i will hopefulyy be able to get it all back together. once i do i will finish plumbing the Nitrous system.
I decided i was gonna go ahead and relocate the battery since i hate it under the hood and its in the way so while the car is down ima do that to it as well.

what really sucks about all this is i just dropped that motor in and havent even driven 1k miles before i went and pulled a dumbass move and too it way higher than it shoulda gone.

oh yea im also gonna put a block guard in since i will have the head off to help resist cylinder walk while spraying the N20 and possible boost later down the road.
any recomendations on a block guard?

guess now is a good time to order all my brake stuff as well (fronts getting low, needs master cylinder and brake booster, and one of my lines just started to look moist...) so rotors, pads (is there something bolt on that is better than the stock DX stuff? maybe SI or Teg?), new integra master, cylinder (i plan on rear disk later anyone have recomendation for year of teg to get master for?) brake booster (leaking vacume), and all new braided steel lines.

I am pretty sure that you will need a master cylinder and the 40/40 prop valve from a da integra to properly run the 4 wheel disc setup. I have not done this but I have been told that the da brakes will fit onto a ef if you get the caliper with mount and the rotor. I think you may need the integra spindle as well but I don't know for sure. As far as a block guard goes you will need some machine work to have it work properly. Check out the archives at endyn (The Old One - Energy Dynamics) They have a great article on proper use of a block guard. Also you may want to shoot them an e-mail about getting your head ported and such. From what I have heard they are one of the best.

I am pretty sure that you will need a master cylinder and the 40/40 prop valve from a da integra to properly run the 4 wheel disc setup. I have not done this but I have been told that the da brakes will fit onto a ef if you get the caliper with mount and the rotor. I think you may need the integra spindle as well but I don't know for sure. As far as a block guard goes you will need some machine work to have it work properly. Check out the archives at endyn (The Old One - Energy Dynamics) They have a great article on proper use of a block guard. Also you may want to shoot them an e-mail about getting your head ported and such. From what I have heard they are one of the best.

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cool thanks for the link and advise.
so pretty much on the rear i have been told to grab whole rear trailing arm to hub, and up front your saying caliper w/ bracket and possibly spindle? shouldnt be to bad to do then. are the rotors the same? or diferent size? i would assume slightly larger....
and on the 40/40 prop valve that is the same as what i have heard.

is the rest of your setup going to work well with stage 3 cams? i hope you have high compression.

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well.... about that...
i have all the supporting mods EXCEPT the high compression pistons... how do you think it would react and run with out the high compression pistons? I do have a 75 shot of N2O I will be running from time to time.
really my question is do you think the stage 3 cams will be slower all motor than the stage 2's because i am not running the compression they would be happier at?

im still about 4 weeks out from ordering the cams so ill take all the input i can get.

also on the dyno graph it doesnt show a very big increase in power on the stage 2's now that was with B18A bottom end and assumably stock cams... With my B20B that has stock bottom end and that comes with larger lift and more duration i see even less of a diferance happening...
i dunno more input would be apreciated.

Also are you looking for a reliable easy to drive car or are you looking to build a angry little track machine that does not have to be civilized in traffic?

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Im looking to have a pissed off track car, it doesn not have to really be street friendly as long as it runs well. (course street friendly could varry quite widely from one to another.)

I love the turns, and love to hit the drag strip both and would like to get into SCCA. I know that some things will conflict with one another for diferent driving styles (I.E. SCCA or Drag Strip type driving)

bottom line is Fast, Reliable (starts and doesnt overheat and no electrical or fuel problems, you know the basics), and with that Fun will come naturally.